


getaway

by knittinglizards



Series: sdr2 coda [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Dissociation, F/F, Gen, Post-Canon, friends... talking about trauma...and supporting each other, hinata and souda talk abt sexuality, hugs!!!!, kinda angsty bc of. despair stuff, prob could be gen but references some gnarly violence so, takes place right after sdr2 and before dr3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 07:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14256174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knittinglizards/pseuds/knittinglizards
Summary: the survivors try to reorient themselves, find comfort in each other, and re-explore jabberwock(title insp)





	getaway

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to @Nipthaniel on twitter for being a wonderful beta and yelling with me about souda!!

After they first woke from the simulation, after they had all sat crying from shock on the floor near their unconscious friends, after Hinata tied up Kamakura’s distractingly long hair into a knot at the back of his head, after the Future Foundation people showed them maps of the real Jabberwock Island and left with assurances they would keep in touch, after they all picked up old flip phones from the warehouse near the hotel to keep track of each other, after they found the solid, dingy versions of their digital cottages and separated to decompress, Sonia took Hinata aside for a quick request.

“Hinata-kun, can I ask you something selfish?” Her face looks tight, more tense than the sunny resting expression he had gotten used to.

“Uh, yeah go ahead.”

“I’m sure you’re as stressed as any of us right now, if not more, but I’d be very much in your debt if you would,” she pauses for a moment and sighs in exasperation, “occupy Souda-kun for the next few days. You’re closest to him and I am very, _very_ tired.”

_Ah._ Sonia had spent time with Souda while in despair, Kamakura recalls. Hinata now regrets not confronting Souda more about his behavior towards her in the Program.

“Yeah, sure, I can do that, Sonia.” They exchange tired smiles. “I’ll talk to him about, uh.. well, you know.”

“I’m sure I do.” Hinata notices she has long parallel scars going from her left cheek down to her shoulder that had not been there in the simulation. “Thank you, Hinata-kun.”

She gives him a quick, tight hug, and leaves to find her cottage. Seeing that it was now early evening and sensing that the others had turned in, Hinata does the same.

//

Hinata slept restlessly that night. After waking up abruptly for the third time in as many hours, he gave up on sleeping and rolled out of bed. The small analog clock hanging next to the bathroom read a little past 3. He resolved to go wash his face.

The cool water was pleasant and calming on his skin. Drying off his face with the hand towel, he caught his reflection in the mirror and froze. Who was that? His long hair had fallen out of the knot some time in the night, and fell in disarray around his face. His expression looked severe, dark undereye bags framing his bright, mismatched eyes.

Suddenly, Hinata recalled that he had seen a pair of scissors in the bathroom cabinet. With a speed bestowed to him by Hope’s Peak’s neurological team, he retrieved them and tugged his locks into a loose ponytail, then severed it, cutting a jagged line just above his shoulder. He let the free hair fall from his hand to the sink and tile floor. The frantic person in the mirror looked less like Kamakura now. More slowly, he pulled his hair into sections and snipped it close to the scalp. Within several minutes, his head felt much lighter. He couldn’t get the back (or the sides) to be quite even, but with the shorter length and some ruffling, a familiar cowlick sprung up in the front. Hinata’s reflection looked more like his high school self. Loose hair tickled the back of his neck, but his shoulders had lost much of their tension. He sighed, deciding to wash his face again after cleaning up the hair.

 

//

 

Several of the talents Kamakura was equipped with had to do with food. Hinata had found himself the first up, so he decided to attempt some breakfast for the others. The next hour or so is blurry to him now, sitting across from Kuzuryu and Souda with a full Japanese breakfast on the splintered balcony table.

Owari and Sonia sit next to each other at a different table across the balcony from the boys. The breakfast is quiet apart from Owari’s occasional praise of Hinata’s cooking. Souda is the only one at their table to attempt conversation, mostly just observations about the island’s humidity. Kuzuryu finishes eating first, and leaves, saying he was going to check on the pod room.

“Good luck, man!” Souda says. The others say much the same as he goes down the balcony stairs, giving a weak wave.

Hinata stacks his finished dishes to take back to the hotel kitchen. “Hey, Souda,” he says, taking his dishes as well, “do you wanna go see what kind of workshop there is here? Or just, like, go to the beach or something?”

Souda smiles at him and stands, grabbing his dishes back, “Yeah man! Those Future Foundation people said we’re gonna be living here for now, so I might as well get working.”

Hinata nods and waves to the other two before going inside. Owari waves back and Sonia just smiles back at him.

//

The geography of Jabberwock isn’t quite the same as in the Program. Their memories of the simulation aren’t perfect, more dreamlike than anything, but they can mostly tell by a feeling of déjà vu what buildings are mostly the same.

Owari and Sonia notice this as they walk together after breakfast. The island with the hotel is mostly familiar, except small odd things, like the airport being completely locked up and free of planes, Rocketpunch being gray and dusty from lack of use, and the ranch being full of weeds and wandering animals. The bridge to the central island is thinner and ricketier than Owari remembers, and she grips Sonia’s hand tightly while they cross it.

The central island houses the administrative building where they woke up. It’s large and modern in style, blocky with windows that take up most of the walls. This and the hotel island are the only places they’ve been since waking up; Owari had suggested they explore a bit after breakfast. She hadn’t voiced the rest of her thought, that it might distract them from fully confronting their situation for a while.

Sonia leads her by the hand around the island, stopping before each of the bridges to the other islands.  Rather than the large numbers over each bridge that Sonia remembers from the Program, there are faded signposts advertising the islands’ attractions. Almost all of them have little pictures of shops and food, plus various familiar things – a plushie factory (‘with tours!’), a library, a concert venue, a theater, an amusement park. They come to this one last. Both girls stop walking as soon as the sign is readable. Owari feels Sonia’s hand stiffen.

“Ya know what,” Owari says, “lets just go check on Kuzuryu right now.”

Sonia, too-quickly, turns to her and gives her a wobbly smile. She leans in and kisses her cheek. “Good idea.” Owari, trembling a little herself, pulls her into a tight hug before they both head for the central building.

//

Souda thought that the island that opened to them last in the Program would be most likely to have a workshop, so he and Hinata head there first. Where Hinata remembers a huge military base being in the simulation, there’s only a helicopter pad surrounded by a field. The Sea King factory is familiar but locked up, so they pass by it quickly. The plushie factory, however, is open, and Souda decides they should check it out. With some unease, Hinata follows him.

The plushies made here and advertised outside the factory look nothing like Monokuma. They seem to be modeled on Jabberwock’s mascot animals, the same ones from the statue in the simulated park and the real administrative building. Souda pokes at a horse plushie disinterestedly.

“Doesn’t seem like there’s much here,” Hinata says. Apart from the actual product, the factory is largely as he remembers.

“Yeaaaah…” Souda frowns. “I don’t know what I was expecting. Ooooooh, maybe there’s something in the warehouse!”

Hinata freezes up a little. “Do you really think so, man? Maybe we should just go check Electric Avenue or something.”

Souda looks at him for a moment, then shrugs. Hinata wonders if he, in a rare moment of sensitivity, remembered the more egregious events in the simulated warehouse and agreed because of that, or if he just didn’t feel that strongly about it. Either way, he leads Souda out of the factory and back toward the central island.

Their trip to the next island is much more successful. Just past the movie theater, at the edge of the line of shops that made up Electric Avenue, they find a small mechanic’s workshop. Souda whoops in excitement as it comes in view and runs ahead of Hinata to get in the door. Hinata smiles as he follows him in.

The workshop is dusty like most other places here, but well-stocked with several unfinished car engines. Souda is practically bouncing as he looks around the shop, picking up the tools he finds and babbling at Hinata about them.  It’s nice to see him so happy, Hinata thinks, noticing, as Souda waves two different types of wrench at him, that he’s missing the pinky and ring fingers of his left hand. The injuries don’t look like clean cuts, and he can feel Kamakura in the back of his mind starting to reconstruct how exactly Souda had lost his fingers while in despair.

Scrambling to distract himself from that, he remembers his favor for Sonia. Now would be a good time to start the uncomfortable conversation he had planned. He anxiously drums his fingers on his arm, vaguely listening to Souda’s chatter. He’s not sure how to begin, and doubts that a straightforward approach to his behavior toward Sonia would get through to the stubborn mechanic. He sits on a low wooden bench near the middle of the shop.

Souda actually starts the conversation for him, distracted from exploring the workshop by Hinata sitting down. “Oh—dude! You cut your hair! It looks like in the computer again!”

“Uh, yeah. I cut it last night.” Hinata, now slightly self-conscious, runs a hand through his short hair.

“No, actually it’s a little messier,” Souda observes, sitting on top of the work table near Hinata’s seat. “That can be hot though. Did you know I got my hair like this,” he gestures to the shaved side of his uncovered hair, “when I was like 12 and got it caught in a bike chain and it all got ripped out? That fucking hurt like HELL.”

Hinata smiles amusedly while Souda frowns at the memory he brought up. “Anyways!” Souda says, “it looks nice, man!”

“Thanks,” Hinata says with a small smile. “it helped me, uh, feel a little more like me.”

Souda goes a bit pale. “Oh yeah.” Hinata notices him glance at his left eye. “Well! If it makes any difference you didn’t act anything like him yesterday. I talked to him a little on the boat going here and dude was, like, cold as ice.”

Hinata nods. “Yeah, I remember talking to most of you then.”

Souda’s eyes widen, and his sharp teeth are visible in a grimace. “Oh, you—I didn’t realize you remembered what he—geez, dude that’s. Wow.”

Hinata smiles, a little sadly. “It wouldn’t really be fair if everyone else had to remember everything they did and I got to forget, right?”

Souda looks teary but stays quiet for a moment. He sniffles, rubs a sleeve across his nose, and swings his legs to face Hinata, crossing them over each other. He frowns, his hands under his chin, like he’s trying to phrase something in his head.

Hinata breaks the silence for him. “Have you been doing okay since the simulation?”

Souda gives him a watery smile. “I, uh. I don’t know, haha. It’s not like I was a different person during despair but not being like… like that for the first time in a long-ass time is. It’s really weird, you know?”

Hinata nods. Souda continues, almost blubbering now, “And I, uh, was doing a lot of, um… _that_ stuff with Miss Sonia! Which should’ve been great even with all the despair brain stuff but it wasn’t.” He tugs at his hair, tears leaking out of his eyes.

Hinata’s ears prick at the mention of Sonia, and he seizes the opportunity to lead the conversation. “Were you and her, like, friends at all? During despair?”

Souda frowns at his hands while they worry at each other in his lap. “I guess not? Besides the whole, uh, war crimes thing it wasn’t that different from how we are now.”

Hinata takes a deep breath. “So you mean… you aggressively flirting and her politely putting you down?”

Souda sits up a little, huffing with an indignant scowl. “Hey! Ya didn’t have to say it like that!”

“What else would you call it, then?”

He scratches his cheek, frowning. “I’m… complimenting her! And she just hasn’t accepted me yet!”

Hinata rolls his eyes. “Do you compliment her on anything she cares about, though?”

Souda starts at that. “Huh?”

“You always talk about her being, like, a perfect woman or whatever. Have you ever talked to her about her interests?”

Souda’s nose wrinkles. “What, like, that weird occult shit? Why would I do that?”

Hinata lets out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know, Souda, it’s kind of a thing you do with people you wanna be friends with.”

Souda sits quietly for a minute. He looks like he’s trying to do mental math. Hinata continues since the workshop is still quiet, “I don’t know man, it seems like you like the idea of Sonia more than actual Sonia. And if you’re talking to your idea of someone, you’re not gonna get anywhere with them.”

That last part seems to get through to Souda. “So you’re saying she’s NEVER gonna like me?” His eyes look watery again.

Hinata shrugs in response. “Maybe just try talking to her as a friend, dude.”

He’s not sure whether Souda properly heard that, as he’s sniffling again, rubbing his eyes with his injured hand. “Sorry, sorry I just—it’s a really long time I’ve had the, uh, the thing with Sonia and it seems like—it feels like,” his words start to run into each other now as he tries to keep from full-on sobbing, “like no one really likes me at all and I’m kind of a mess not just with the despair stuff which is like enough of a reason to be a mess but like with all of everything from the computer I kept thinking some of the dudes there were kinda hot and I don’t know what to think of that like I’m not gay or anything but I don’t know if that’s normal or—” he runs out of breath, letting out a fully-fledged sob into his hands.

Hinata isn’t used to his crying fits being quite this severe. He reaches out a hand to awkwardly pat Souda’s leg in what he hopes is a calming way. He’s a bit amazed at him jumping from angst over being brainwashed and murdering people to a crisis over his sexuality. Though this wasn’t where Hinata was expecting this talk to go, he at least could add something supportive by telling him. He lets Souda’s sobbing subside into intermittent sniffs, still patting his leg, then takes a deep breath and looks him in the eye.

“That’s not weird, man. And actually, uh… you’re not, like, the only one who deals with that stuff. I’m bi,” Hinata says.

Souda’s teary face is blank for a moment, then stretches into a caricature of surprise. “OH! You’re! Oh! Wow!” he brays out a tittering nervous laugh. “Cool! That’s, uh, great, man!”

There are a few swollen seconds of silence.  Hinata considers also telling him about being trans, but Souda seemed distressed enough by his earlier venting, so he decides to bring it up some other time. Souda currently looks like he had just been asked to choose between working on a car-transformer-rocket ship and being given a lifetime supply of his favorite candy. He tugs at his braid a bit, sneaking a considering look at Hinata.

“When did–” he coughs, shakes his head a little, and starts over. “how did you know?  That you. Uh… Like dudes?”

“I, uh,” Hinata clears his throat. He hadn’t talked with anyone about this since before the Kamakura Project. “In middle school, I think? Maybe at my old high school. And as for how, its—its kinda hard to say, I guess. I think I fully figured it out when I realized that me freaking out over what my friend thought about how I looked during gym was a crush thing and not just a friend thing.”

Souda looks a little pink. “You had a crush on your friend?”

“Uh, yeah?” Hinata laughs. “I think that’s pretty normal.”

Souda nods slowly, looking like he’s deep in thought. “Would you, uh…” he pauses for a moment. “So you’re saying that liking dudes is just a normal thing?”

“Yeah?” Hinata isn’t sure where he’s going with the question. “Being gay or bi or… whatever, it’s normal.”

Souda frowns at his lap a for a bit, then springs up off the table. “Okay!” he says, seeming to have had enough of the conversation. “I’ve had a look around the shop, do you wanna go check back at the hotel?”

“Uh, sure.” Hinata stands up too. He turns to the door, but Souda’s hand on his shoulder stops him. When he turns to face him, his face is back to a serious expression.

“Thanks. For listening to me, bro.” Souda hesitates for a second, then pulls Hinata into a tight hug that lasts a little too long.

When Souda releases him, Hinata coughs a little and smiles. “Of course, man! It’s a friend thing—oh wait, a soul bro thing.”

Souda grins toothily at that and claps him on the back. Before he follows Hinata out the door, he pockets a key to the workshop.

//

Owari sits on the floor in the Neo World Program room, leaning her head on Sonia’s shoulder. The two of them had come in earlier and checked on Kuzuryu, and when it seemed like he intended to stay all day, made a trip to Rocketpunch for lunch and snack foods. Now the three of them sit in the center of the room, quietly looking at their unconscious classmates’ pods.

Though it’s nearly impossible to see whose pod is whose by looking at them, the monitors they’re sitting under display each Remnant’s name and current vital signs. Kuzuryu sits directly in front of Peko’s pod, angled almost entirely away from the other two. Gundham’s and Nidai’s pods are almost directly across the room from each other, and every few minutes Owari feels Sonia’s head shift from resting against her own to looking over at Gundham. Glancing at Nidai’s pod, Owari wonders, not for the first time today, whether any of them will ever wake up. She imagines never getting the opportunity to train with Nidai again, to never get to thank him again, and only realizes she’s trembling when Sonia’s hand strokes her hair.

Owari glances at what she can see of Sonia, her primly folded legs. She has noticed that almost all of Sonia’s skin is adorned with long, winding scars. Owari compares them with her own scarless body. She wonders what Sonia had done during despair to get them. Someday she would ask.

Now, she gently traces a scar near Sonia’s knee. “It’s weird,” she says, making both of the others jump at the sudden noise, “how different we looked in there.”

Kuzuryu chuckles sadly and adjusts his eyepatch.  “Well, we were all really different before Hope’s Peak.”

Owari lifts her head from Sonia’s shoulder to nod at him. They lapse back into quiet. Sonia twines her fingers around Owari’s, Owari leans against Sonia’s shoulder again, and Kuzuryu snacks on a bag of sweet crackers from the market.

Owari is almost completely asleep, Sonia stroking slow circles on her farther arm, when a sudden beeping grabs both of their attention. All three jump up when they see the flashing display on the room’s outer monitors.

Someone is waking up.

“SHIT!” Kuzuryu yells, “Does it say who it is?”

They scrutinize the monitors, then run around the room, checking each pod. Sonia sees someone shifting in one. “Here!”

A brief look of disappointment crosses Kuzuryu’s face before he takes out his flip phone to text Hinata and Souda:

GET TO THE POD ROOM NOW. TOGAMI IS WAKING UP

**Author's Note:**

> this will Probably be a series bc i have a lot of ideas about the time between sdr2 and dr3... and just postcanon jabberwock in general


End file.
